20 August 2008

I have had a lot of math education. A lot. Ridiculous amounts. Seriously, enough to be a math major. And here's the thing: I suck at math. No, sucking at math would be a huge improvement. I aspire to suck at math. Algebra, Calculus, all of it was torturous and I hated all of it with a white hot, seething, growling Cujo intensity.*

I'm not even good with basic arithmetic. To this day, I calculate tips with a calculator and, sometimes, I still get it wrong. It would be so easy to grift me.

Me: Just tell me what I owe.

You, looking at bill: Let's see, we each had a beer and I had the nachos. You owe $6,000.

Me: Okay.

I have no number skills and no number memory.

You: Remember this number: 4,312.

Me: What? What number?

You: 4,312.

Me: Do I have to?

You: Yes. It's 4,312.

Me: Four what?

You: 4,312!

Me: *blink*

You: *glare*

Me, sweating: It had an eight, right?

You: *walking away, disgusted* **

The only math class I liked was Geometry. Where I suck with the numbers, I'm all over the shapes. I'm a first class fitter-inner. Spatial puzzles? No probs. Predict the missing part? I can do that.

I can tell if the car will fit into the parking space. I know if the TV will fit into the car trunk and how to orient it. I can tell if the hall carpet is big enough to roll the dead, bloated body in. I can pick the perfect size pan or container to put leftovers in. The perfect size. I am the Rainman of spatial relations. Like most of my other skills, I don't know how I can use this to get money, but I'm very proud of it, all the same.

* You would think this immense suckitude would make me more sympathetic to other people's limitations. Not even a little bit.

I'm that way with directions. No matter how many times you have told me, written them down and simultaneously talked me through it on the phone - I'm still going to take a left where I should have taken a right.

No wonder I like you...numbers and I never got along, which is why I ended up in Linguistics. German grammar is so much easier than calculus. But oddly enough, I also was very good at geometry, both plane and solid, AND trigonometry. I guess I was born under the right sine...